From the Farmhouse Table: February 2022
The ferry over the waters to Hedgebrook always feels a bit like an initiation ritual, a surrender to the whims and weather of the island. I began this week walking the land with a film crew, highly attuned to shifting light, conversations in the distance, the buzzing of the hedge trimmer and the Doppler effect roaring of passing small planes. I tend to think of Hedgebrook as a quiet place removed from the daily busyness of towns and cities but the woods have a loudness of their own! The operations team is hard at work at the cottages, among the trees, and along the paths, getting ready to welcome this year’s first group of writers-in-residence. After a morning of intermittent downpours, we stood at the entrance to Hedgebrook just as the clouds rolled back and the sun burst through in beneficent welcome. A confirmation: it’s a new time.
Is there such a thing as courageous trepidation? Here at Hedgebrook, our team continues to grapple with what we are all charged with as individuals - the health and well-being of the collective - while the pandemic continues, constantly and rapidly shifting our sense of “normal”. But lately I have been eyeing the future for glimmers of a renaissance. It is Black Futures Month, after all, and history’s cycles show that after worldwide upheaval such as this, a golden age often follows. When I get bogged down in the now, I like to dream instead of all of you, holed up at home across the world, writing the words, singing the songs, plotting and scheming the stories of that golden future. And I can’t wait to witness, celebrate, and participate in its dawn.
I hope you’ll join me, Elizabeth de Souza, and Samantha Thornhill on February 17th for the first Cottage Chat of 2022. We’ll talk Black joy, hope, and the sacred beauty of creative connection. A perfect tone for our year’s offerings, which is our way here at Hedgebrook of saying we want to know you, we appreciate your presence and contribution to this Earth. We’re glad you’re here.
Amber Flame
Program Director